Reviews
Book Reviews - "C"
The Complete Guide to Sharpening – by Leonard Lee
The author, Leonard Lee, is the president of Veritas Tools and Lee Valley Tools, so the odds are pretty good that he knows his stuff when it comes to sharpening tools. This book bears that out. It covers quite an extensive range of tool sharpening. I probably learned more about sharpening a two-man crosscut saw than I will ever need in my lifetime, even if I was a young pup. Then again, if you are a tool person you just might find this kind of in-depth coverage to be what you want. Certainly you will be hard pressed to find a woodworking tool that isn’t covered.
In addition to the actual sharpening techniques, there is a section on the physics of cutting wood, the metallurgy of the cutting tools, the types of the abrasives and the tools used for sharpening. What isn’t covered in this book is the use of more recent innovations such as the Work Sharp (if you want to call that an innovation).
While a range of sharpening tools is discussed – grinders, diamond stones, water stones, honing guides, etc. – almost all of the sharpening techniques rely on water stones with an occasional session on a belt sander. This system obviously has been learned over a lifetime and if it works for Mr. Lee, it will work for you. Other techniques are discussed, but if you want to explore other sharpening techniques in depth you will have to find another book.
What tools are covered? Name it. Chisels, plane blades and their kin, knives, carving and turning tools, scrapers, handsaws, axes and their cousins, power saw blades, drill bits of various types, and a few others. The author even describes a few sharpening techniques that will help your non-cutting tools, too, such as screwdrivers.
The copyright on this book is 1995 and the publisher is Taunton Press, the parent company of Fine Woodworking Magazine. In 2005 they came out with Taunton’s Complete Illustrated Guide to Sharpening by Thomas Lie-Nielsen (another man who would know his sharpening). I have not read the new book, so it might be worth checking out before purchasing the book reviewed here. However, Mr. Lee’s book is available in paperback at about half the price of the new hardcover Taunton book. I don’t know that you will get that much more value by spending more, but it would be worth considering. Additionally, there are other books on sharpening, so don’t limit yourself to these two. I have another one myself waiting in the wings to be read. I’ll review that, too, when I feel up to delving into sharpening again.
Published by The Taunton Press - Copyright 1995
Reviewed on August 26, 2010